


meet me in the garden

by smallestbrown



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: A very brief and slanted mention of depressive ideas, All Fluff no Plot basically, Established Relationship, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff, Gardens & Gardening, Married Couple, We accept that s1-s3 happen, but we also say "after that everything gets fixed", which basically means "we tangentially address Tim's mental state in season three"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:21:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24615208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smallestbrown/pseuds/smallestbrown
Summary: Tim thinks about the sun on his shoulders, the dirt under his nails. He thinks of Sasha, pulling up weeds in the lawn, dirt smeared on her cheek and smile like a sunrise.And before things can bloom, they need to be planted.
Relationships: Sasha James/Tim Stoker
Comments: 31
Kudos: 74





	meet me in the garden

Tim takes a gardening fork to the old soil, pulling at the packed, dry earth. Puffs of dust rise with it, but they catch in the soft wind. He cuts open a bag of fresh dirt and spreads it along the row. Then he kneels down in the grass again. 

He takes off his gloves and digs his hands into the dirt. Tim likes the way it gets under his fingernails, likes the satisfying feeling of cleaning them afterwards. He pushes down into the earth and pulls it back up, mixing the old soil with the new. The sun is warm across his back, the breeze sweet against his face, the dirt cool against his skin.

He watches two worms wriggle to the surface. It doesn’t make his skin itch or his breath catch like it used to. Instead, the fresh dirt feels soothing on his scars. 

Tim feels alive. He feels okay.

“Delivery!” comes Sasha’s voice. She’s carrying a crate of bright yellow marigolds, a carton of fertilizer under her arm and two water bottles hung from her fingers.

Tim grins up at her oversized rainboots and huge floppy hat. “You look great,” he says.

“Why, thank you, Timothy.” Sasha deposits the crate to the side. “You look like you’re having a time.”

“I am,” he says, nodding down at the dirt. 

She smiles back at him earnestly. “I’m glad.”

With Sasha, he feels okay too. He doesn’t have to fake cheer or smiles or jokes; he can be—messy, and messed up, and unhappy, at times, and she gets that. He can find joy in sticking his hands in the dirt, in watching worms, and she won’t question it. She’ll join him. She’ll stay.

Sasha puts the water bottles down next to his knees and plants a kiss on his cheek, and straightens up to start spreading fertilizer in with the dirt he’s mixing.

They work smoothly and in-sync, just like they did in research or in the archives. Once mixed, Tim pats down the earth, and Sasha spades holes in the ground for the new plants. She coats the bottom of each hole with a fresh mix of water and fertilizer, and Tim transplants the flowers in with care. Together, they press in the dirt around the stems like tiny moats.

With a wink, Tim goes to fetch the hose.

The front of the house is blooming. Alongside the marigolds, there’s a trellis of honeysuckle vines, pale green boxwood shrubs and the tiny white blooms of lily of the valley. The drooping white tails of a cavatine pieris knock up against blue rozanne geraniums, stetching as far as they can up to windowsill planters that burst with daisies. Tulip season has just ended, but the last of their bright orange bulbs sway gently in the wind. He’d clipped a few into a bouquet for Sasha the week before, surprising her when he came inside. She’d almost scoffed at how clichéd it was, but breathed in lungfulls of their scent with reverence. She pressed some of their petals into a book, and kept it by their bedside.

He loops around to the backyard. Here, they’ve planted all kinds of vegetables; cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, carrots. A patch in the corner crowns with raspberries and blueberries. Tim rinses off his hands with the hose and snags a handful of berries. They burst tart and refreshing on his tongue. He cradles a few more carefully in his palm, then tugs the hose back round to the front.

Sasha’s pulling up weeds in the lawn when he returns. “Hungry?” he calls. She glances up, dirt smeared on her cheek and smile like a sunrise.

“You’ve been sneaking blueberries,” she notes with a sly smirk.

“No comment,” he laughs. “You want some?” Sasha opens her mouth and Tim pops her a blueberry. 

“Better than last year’s, eh?”

Sasha chews and nods. “Definitely. Our best work yet.”

“Just remember to leave a good review.”

Tim sprays down the front plot while Sasha finishes weeding. There was a time, once, in a place of tunnels and spirals and lost people and lost things, where even waking up the next day was something Tim wouldn’t wish for. But he thinks about the sun on his shoulders, the dirt under his nails. About being here, gardening with Sasha, a year from now, or two. He smiles and glances back at her, bent over on their lawn with her ridiculous hat. The wind catches her curls and they whip around her face, dark and beautiful. 

And he finds, with less and less surprise these days, that he’s looking forward to it—to having time.

He tugs the hose back to its spot and rounds the house again. In the front yard, Sasha’s just finished putting away their tools. She offers him a water bottle when he approaches. Tim catches her wrist with one hand, wiping the dirt from her cheek with his other. Sasha beams and kisses his wrist.

“My hero,” she teases, eyes sparkling. Tim snorts.

He settles on the ground with a sigh, kicking his legs out in front on him. He leans back on his palms and closes his eyes, taking a moment to bask. Feel the grass under his fingers, the ants that scurry over his knuckles, the wind that whispers through his hair. Thinks about living and being alive and being okay, and how those three things have rarely overlapped before but now—now it’s like they’re finally eclipsing and the sun can finally shine, and he and Sasha can begin the work of building and rebuilding, and starting anew.

His eyes flutter open again, and he watches Sasha lean over the stairs towards the honeysuckle vines, stretching to pluck a bloom off of the vine just below its leaves. She settles next to him on the grass, and squeezes the tip to pull the bloom from the stem, catching the nectar on her tongue. She looks up at him and reaches out to tuck the bloom behind his ear.

“My ear’s gonna get sticky,” he complains, trying to pout despite the grin pulling at his lips, and the way he leans into her touch automatically.

“An _awful_ price to pay, pretty boy,” Sasha says. 

“ _Ooh_ , call me that again.”

Sasha laughs and leans in just the same, and Tim tastes the sweetness of syrup on her lips, just as much as he tastes joy, and peaceful days, and time spent in fresh meadows and warm sheets. He never wants to forget the taste. He wants to kiss every good feeling onto her skin, wants to breathe every sigh she lets out against his lips.

Sasha leans back and smiles at him, her hand cupping his cheek, when they hear a car horn honk. Tim cranes his neck to see a car pulling up the long stretch of driveway.

“ _He_ ’s early,” says Sasha, giving him one last peck on the lips.

Tim leans back with an exaggerated groan as Sasha stands. “He makes _fashionably late_ a misnomer.”

“Hm! You could learn a thing or two from him, then,” she says, dusting off her apron.

“Not you too, Sash!” Tim whines. She grins and holds out a hand. 

“Relax,” Sasha teases. “I knew what I was getting into.” 

She helps Tim up and he stumbles into her purposefully, winding his arms around her waist. “You mean when you married me?”

“I think even before that,” she laughs. Tim loves her laugh.

“We were always endgame, Sasha James.” Her smile is sweeter than anything he’s ever tasted.

“Lucky me.”

He’s almost pulled her in again when their visitor calls out: “Keep it PG, you nerds!”

“Hi, Danny!” Sasha calls over her shoulder. To Tim, she says, “I’m gonna go clean up.”

“M’kay,” Tim responds.

Tim joins his brother at the car and wraps him in a hug—though Tim is careful to keep his honeysuckle bloom safe. “You didn’t forget the drinks this time, did you?”

“‘Course not,” says Danny.

“Anything good?” Tim elbows him, and Danny grins. 

“‘Course not.”

They grab the coolers from his trunk and pull them to the backyard patio. Danny argues for the right to man the barbecue, and Tim pulls the older sibling card, like he does every year. 

There were a few years where he couldn’t, but. It’s behind them.

They’re unpacking sodas and drinks from the coolers when they hear another car pull up. He and Danny make it back to the driveway in time to see Jon and Martin clamber out, waving sheepishly, and Sasha stepping out of the house with distinctly less dirt on her face—not that Tim minds either way. She meets his gaze and rolls her eyes.

“What is it with our friends and their nefarious punctuality?”

“We’ve got horrible taste,” Tim agrees.

They all move to the backyard again, chatting and catching up and exchanging hugs where appreciated—warm and enthusiastic, from Martin, shy but tight-clung, from Jon. The two of them have brought three kinds of pie, a choice that Martin only defends by claiming he couldn’t decide, but Sasha smiles warmly at him and says they’ll be glad for leftovers for next time.

Tim heats up the barbecue while the others set the table, and Sasha comes behind him to wrap her arms around his waist.

“Hey,” she says into his shoulder.

“Hi.” 

He loops an arm around her waist and kisses the top of her head, and they watch Jon and Martin bickering and Danny laughing, and Tim thinks about how grateful he is that they can do this. That they have this, because the years and months when they didn’t—they almost broke him. 

Maybe they did break him. They did, and that matters, but at least they left something to rebuild. To start anew.

Sasha kisses his shoulder and leans back against him, and Tim thinks of time, and living, and planting marigolds next year.

**Author's Note:**

> it's puuuuuure fix-it fic but sometimes that's what you need. titlecard illustration for this bad boy is [here](https://smallestbrown.tumblr.com/post/620488205983219712/meet-me-in-the-garden-sasha-jamestim-stoker)~
> 
> i'm also on [tumblr](https://smallestbrown.tumblr.com) and [twitter](https://mobile.twitter.com/smallestbrown) basically thinking about timsasha constantly!


End file.
